GEORGE WALKER (b.1922): String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 (Son Sonora String Quartet), Piano Sonata No. 4 (Frederick Moyer), Song Without Words for Piano, Songs: Take. O Take Those Lips Away, Lament, And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus (James Martin [baritone], George Walker [piano]).
Catalogue Number: 02K088
Label: Albany
Reference: TROY 1082
Format: CD
Price: $17.98
Description: The first quartet is an early work, written when the composer was 24, conventionally tonal, in three movements, two energetic movements surround an affectingly lyrical slow movement. The second was written over 20 years later and revised recently; here the composer's more familiar chromatic language is more evident, though in the context of highly organized classical forms and a firm tonal basis. The sonata is a tough and pianistically demanding work, with a declamatory opening giving way to ambiguously searching material. The tranquillo second movement is also restless, built on asymmetrical phrases and interrupted by a fast motoric section, somewhat Prokofiev-like, or with Bartókian persistence. The songs are sophisticated 20th-century artsong, generally somber in mood, tonal and in the final piano solo arrangement of a song to the composer's text, gently invoking a nocturnal jazz mood.